Jimmy Haslam downplays FBI raid on Pilot Flying J

4:01 AM,
Apr. 17, 2013

Jimmy Haslam is the CEO of the Knoxville, Tenn.-based Pilot Flying J truck stop chain. FBI and Internal Revenue Service agents locked down the company's headquarters on Monday, April 15, 2013. The company said in a statement that it did did not know why FBI officials closed the headquarters but that it is cooperating with authorities.

Written by

Bobby Allyn, Michael Cass and Chas Sisk
| The Tennessean

A day after the FBI locked down the Knoxville headquarters of Pilot Flying J, the multibillion-dollar truck stop company owned by the family of Gov. Bill Haslam, his brother downplayed the raid and said he had launched an internal investigation of his own.

CEO Jimmy Haslam, who also owns the Cleveland Browns, held an 11-minute news conference at the company's headquarters and said the federal probe involves volume discounts, or rebates, on gas that were supposed to have been paid to a "very insignificant number of customers." Haslam said federal officials believed the rebates were not ...